Black sheep Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Idiomatic usage== The term originated from the occasional black sheep which are born into a flock of white sheep. Black wool is considered commercially undesirable because it cannot be dyed.<ref name="AHD"/> In 18th and 19th century England, the black color of the sheep was seen as the mark of the devil.<ref>{{ cite book | last = Sykes | first = Christopher Simon | title = Black Sheep | publisher = [[Viking Press]] | location = New York | year = 1983 |page=11 |isbn=978-0-670-17276-4 }}</ref> In modern usage, the expression has lost some of its negative connotations, though the term is usually given to the member of a group who has certain characteristics or lack thereof deemed undesirable by that group.<ref name="black sheep">{{cite book | title = The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms | publisher = Houghton Mifflin Company | year = 1992 | url = http://www.answers.com/topic/black-sheep | access-date = 2008-03-24 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080415121927/http://www.answers.com/topic/black-sheep | archive-date = 2008-04-15 | url-status = live }}</ref> [[Jessica Mitford]] described herself as "the red sheep of the family", a [[communist]] in a family of aristocratic [[fascist]]s.<ref>[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/16/061016crbo_books1?currentPage=all "Red Sheep: How Jessica Mitford found her voice"] by Thomas Mallon 16 Oct 2007 ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606160937/http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/16/061016crbo_books1?currentPage=all |date=6 June 2011 }}.</ref> The idiom is also found in other languages, e.g. [[German language|German]], [[Finnish language|Finnish]], [[French language|French]], [[Italian language|Italian]], [[Serbo-Croatian]], [[Bulgarian language|Bulgarian]], [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]], [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]], [[Greek language|Greek]], [[Turkish language|Turkish]], [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]], [[Dutch language|Dutch]], [[Afrikaans]], [[Swedish language|Swedish]], [[Danish language|Danish]], [[Spanish language|Spanish]], [[Catalan language|Catalan]], [[Czech language|Czech]], [[Slovak language|Slovak]], [[Romanian language|Romanian]] and [[Polish language|Polish]]. During the [[Second Spanish Republic]] a weekly magazine named ''[[El Be Negre]]'', meaning 'The Black Sheep', was published in [[Barcelona]].<ref>[http://www.ciberniz.com/benegre.htm El be negre (1931-1936) - La Ciberniz] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130211051525/http://www.ciberniz.com/benegre.htm |date=2013-02-11 }}</ref> The same concept is illustrated in some other languages by the phrase "white crow": for example, ''belaya vorona'' ({{lang|ru|бе́лая воро́на}}) in [[Russian language|Russian]] and ''kalāg-e sefīd'' ({{lang|fa|کلاغ سفید}}) in [[Persian language|Persian]]. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page